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Y has taken to giving big, giant bear hugs to everyone in the family. It is precious when he hugs me or my DH, but C is not quite so fond of the bear hugs. In fact, Y, even though he is shorter, is much more filled out than C and I reckon that at this point there might be only 2 or 3 pounds difference between their weights, maybe even less. So Y wraps C up in a big bear hug...and tackles him right to the ground. At which point Y continues said bear hug, despite the screaming and wriggling of C who is trying desperately to end the overwhelming affection being shown to him by his little brother. Y laughs the whole time and it is kind of hilarious to see the difference in the two boys' reactions. :)

I'm not really sure how to handle this. I feel bad for punishing Y when he is just trying to show affection, and I think C gets a little carried away with showing his dislike. But at the same time, if C doesn't like it then I don't want to make him endure it! Sometime I really wish kids came with a manual.

Speaking of manuals, I need the one for 11-year-olds. My husband and I spent a lot of time last night discussing the problems we are having with D, and we both feel totally inadequate to deal with these. I mean it's not like major bad stuff...not like he is threatening to kill us or stuff like that. I think it is just getting frustrating to feel like we are just treading water and not actually changing his life. It's so easy to see how different the little boys are now that they have been with us for several months. It's not so easy to see any changes in D. I mean I can definitely see some, but it's just like little things. But like I told my DH last night, I think (hope) that the longer he is with us, the more rapidly his changes will accelerate. So even though it's just a little bit now, that little bit will keep growing and growing. And as a percentage of his life, he has only been with us...what, like 5% of his life or something? For the little boys that number is much, much higher. Y has been with us almost 1/3 of his life, for C it's something like 20% I think. Crazy to think about their mom missing so much...

At any rate, it's just difficult to know what other 11-year-old boys (and their parents) are like when, really, we don't know anybody with kids that age. It's really nice to have friends with kids that are Y and C's age because I can learn from them and observe what they are doing and all of that kind of stuff. But D doesn't want anyone at school to know he's in foster care, so he doesn't invite any of them over to our house or anything like that. All our friends are our age, and most people our age do not have 11-year-old children. He hasn't made any friends at church, at least not ones that he hangs out with, though I'm hopeful that he will. He has some friends that live on our street and I know that those parents are much more strict than we are. We've talked about really buckling down on D, and I think we are going to try harder to do some of that. But there is definitely a part of me that doesn't want to ruin the relationship that I feel like we are starting to build with him.

For those of you waiting with bated (baited?) breath for the info from our meeting with our SC...well, it didn't happen. He canceled. I asked him to come out tomorrow, but he hasn't said yet if he will or not. So I guess we will see!

C can now answer the question "Do you know why you are in time out?" which is awesome. He always knows the right answer, too. I feel now like time outs are actually meaningful to him. Hopefully before he also understood why he was in time out, but I guess the fact that he can verbalize it makes me feel confirmed that he does actually understand.

Bio mom has been canceling visits again. On Fridays Baby M has a visit by herself, but mom was not there (or, at least, didn't answer the door). Saturday she called and canceled. Sunday, D started asking us about adoption again. I'm seeing a definite pattern that when she cancels, he starts thinking about these things. He asked us if we could pick one of the kids to adopt, which would it be. We said we would adopt all of them of course, then he said that his friends on our block said they would adopt him if he came up for adoption. Which I don't really know if that even would be possible and it's really irrelevant information at this point, I just think it's interesting that he is talking about it again.

I taught Y to sign "carrot" and "orange". He is also signing "cup" without having to be prompted when he wants a drink which is really nice.

"Open" is now Y's go-to word when he needs help. Can't get on the couch? "Open!" followed by screaming. Need to fit a puzzle piece into the puzzle? "Open!" followed by screaming. Need to open a door on a toy? "Open!"...ah yes, that's the right word. I am trying to teach him to sign "help" but he only does it when prompted...and really, his sign looks kind of like he is throwing his hands up in despair combined with shrugging his shoulders. Ah well, I know what he means at least! :)

And this baby needs to eat. Again :)

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I understand what you're going through because I have an 11-yr-old girl who was a foster child that we recently adopted. I would love to share any wisdom in this departmet... every day is a ride but I think my DH and I have cracked into some of her mysteries and we're seeing the rewards for our efforts. Feel free to email me at kekukila at gmail dot com, or check my daily blog too at immediatemotherhood.com.

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It's been a year since I last wrote. So much has happened! Way too much to put here, but suffice to say it has been crazy. Our oldest has headed off to boot camp for the Marines, he'll be in the reserves. The other kids are 9, 7, 6, 4, 2.

Maybe I'll have time to catch up on stuff later, though I'm feeling a little weird about posting too much online. It's scary out there in the internets!

I'm writing because our journey in Foster Care Land might not be over, like we sort of thought that it was! Let me explain.

In January 2016 hubby's brother and brother's girlfriend had their son taken into foster care. They didn't tell anyone, and their son was with a foster parent (a stranger, no one in the family) for 3 months until hubby's mom found out. She contacted the state and was able to be the foster parent for the little boy. Brother and his girlfriend got straightened out, and got him back about 9 months later.

So I took the three older boys to get their eyes checked. Cassius already had glasses, but only needed to wear them at school. He kept them in the case in his backpack. A few weeks before the last day of school he said "Mommy, when are you going to fix my glasses?" Ah, well, I guess when you let me know that they are broken, son! They were unsalvageable and by that time it really didn't matter too much anyway. I have no idea how long they were broken before he let me know about them. D lost his glasses, or broke them or...something. He typically looses them within a few weeks of starting the school year. Then since Y will be starting kindergarten this year we got his eyes checked as well. We had an inking he maybe needed some help. Yep, his right eye is 20/100 and his left is 20/400! So he needs to wear glasses all the time. Even with glasses the ophthalmologist said she could only get his vision to 20/30, but obviously that is still much much better.

So I'm sure I mentioned that I sent bio mom a message a few weeks ago just checking in on how she's doing, and I hadn't heard back from her.

Well I finally heard back from her last night. She's in the hospital for her heart and blood pressure, and it's not looking so good. She has struggled with this for a long time, it sounds like it runs in the family. She's still very young, too young to be dealing with this but I guess we don't get to decide what "too young" is. Anyway it sounds like she'll be in the hospital at least for a few more days. And doctors found something else on her liver but aren't sure what it is. She was supposed to find out today but hasn't yet.

She asked me to call her, so I did. She said "You guys are about the only family I have left" meaning people that she actually talks to. :( I was nervous about it because I thought maybe there was a chance of confrontation but it went just fine. She sounded so t…

I am a wife to a wonderful husband, a stay at home mom and homeschool teacher, and a small business owner/employee. Currently living in our home we have 2 dogs, 1 cat, and 5 kids. D is 18 and out on his own, C is 9, Y is 7, Miss M is 6, big surprise Ben (conceived after 5 years of not preventing pregnancy and years after giving up on fertility treatments, then born 11 weeks early) is 4, and our youngest (also a big surprise!) is 2. D, Y and C have been with us since June 2010 and Miss M has been with us since May 2012. Their adoptions were finalized on December 1, 2012 when they left foster care forever!
This blog chronicles our adventures and learning experiences as we endeavor to raise someone else's children (now our own!) to the best of our abilities.